


Visions Found at the Bottom of an Inkwell

by FireEye



Category: Myst Series
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-24
Updated: 2018-10-24
Packaged: 2019-08-06 20:19:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16394408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireEye/pseuds/FireEye
Summary: Atrus, one late night, and a visitor.





	Visions Found at the Bottom of an Inkwell

**Author's Note:**

  * For [faceofstone](https://archiveofourown.org/users/faceofstone/gifts).



Letters danced across the page in the lamplight, spilled from his pen.

Whole paragraphs changed before his eyes, the meaning he had written into them lost and reshaped into something foreign, even as he stared at them.  It left him at a loss for words, least of all written ones, as he tried to make sense of it.

The shadows moved.  At first, he thought it a trick of the light.  Rubbing his eyes, he thought to ignore it; but the movement in the corner of his vision swept along at the periphery of his vision, gathering darkness and forming the shape of a man.

Atrus sat up straighter.  Many harsh years had taken their toll, but he knew that face.

“Gehn.”

“ _Gehn_ is it?  Not _father_ , no, of course not.  Not from you.”

The same years had done nothing to dull the edge of contempt in his father’s voice.  If anything, they amplified it.  This, at least, Atrus accepted with some small measure of pride.

“Insolent _boy_.  Even now.  To think, I offered you _everything_ ; the Art, the legacy of _my_ people...”  Not _our_ people, Atrus noted silently, “your _rightful_ place.  All I asked was respect.  The respect _any_ father would ask of his child.  Instead, you repaid me with betrayal.”

It shouldn’t have cut him, not deeply.  But somehow it did.  Gehn stared down at him, and Atrus felt... infinitely small.

“Do you have nothing to say for yourself?” Gehn demanded, “Is this the manner of respect you would ask of your own sons, I wonder?”

A chill settled in Atrus’ chest.  “How-...?”

“It is of no matter to you, I assure you.  Perhaps I will find a use for them in the coming age; I am certain they will be far more amenable to my ways than yours.”

Atrus’ arm knocked against the lamp as he shot to his feet.  It shattered, spilling fire across his arm, across the page.  The panel collapsed in on itself, turning the inky black-...

-...of spilled ink.

He roused, hastily blotting at the spill that covered a blessedly empty page.  The lamp sat at his elbow, and Gehn was...

 _Gehn was still trapped_.

The fear of the dream lingered, cold in his heart.

Gehn was still trapped, he told himself.  But if so, Catherine was trapped with him.

Atrus turned the page.  Riven still needed writing.  Breathing deep, he rubbed his eyes, marked his place, and set to committing words on paper.

The shadows moved in the periphery of his vision – someone linking in.  A momentary terror gripped him, followed by a flush of relief as an only fleetingly familiar individual materialized in front of his desk.

He had forgotten that he was no longer alone in this fight.

**Author's Note:**

> ...Atrus seems like he could use a beachside vacation. For all that he'd probably end up bored and build a resort to keep himself busy.


End file.
